September 14, 2012

[D]idn't Obama change [the way with think about race]? And isn't it so that people who don't like him don't like him because of race? [Mikal] Gilmore takes five different swings at getting Dylan to agree. Some of Dylan's responses: "They did the same thing to Bush, didn't they? They did the same thing to Clinton, too, and Jimmy Carter before that....Eisenhower was accused of being un-American. And wasn't Nixon a socialist? Look what he did in China. They'll say bad things about the next guy too." On Gilmore's fourth attempt, Dylan just resorts to: "Do you want me to repeat what I just said, word for word? What are you talking about? People loved the guy when he was elected. So what are we talking about? People changing their minds?"...

[W]hat does Dylan think of Obama? Dylan first deflects with: "You should be asking his wife what she thinks of him."... Then: "He loves music. He's personable. He dresses good. What the fuck do you want me to say?"

... Gilmore follows that up with: "Would you like to see him re-elected?" Bob: I've lived through a lot of presidents. You have too! Some are re-elected and some aren't. Being re-elected isn't the mark of a great president."

... Dylan, on the night of Obama's inauguration, was performing and said from stage: "It looks like things are gonna change now." Remember that, Bob?...

... "Did I go down to the middle of town and give a speech?....I don't know what I could have meant by that. You say things sometimes, you don't know what the hell you mean.... I'm not going to deny what I said, but I would have hoped that things would've changed."

That comes pretty close to saying he's disappointed. And he's already said — in so many words — these politicians are all alike. But he catches himself and adds:

"I certainly hope they have."

Now, he's speaking in the present test and not the convoluted conditional of I would have hoped that things would've changed. But it's the present-tense of his own mind, a retreat from the political sphere. Gilmore finally gets a clue, which he expresses, sounding like someone who's spent a lot of time in the realm of cluelessness:

"I get the impression...that you're reluctant to say much about the president or how he's been criticized."

92 comments:

Haha, they still don't get it. He's his own man, never was that much of a knee-jerk leftist. Even his protest song phase was quite short, boomers' memories to the contrary. He quickly got bored with the drill and went on to other things.

I like ol' Bob. Out of all the hippie "leaders," I'll take ol' Bob over all of them. Whether the subject is politics, or even his tribe, he refuses to be partisan - a lesson many can learn in this time of politics, where only the other guy is bad for America.

Question to Mikal: What did "we" think before? What do "we" think now? As if it could be reduced to something that simple. And, then, as a follow-up, what did Obama do that accounts for that difference? Name anything specific.

"And isn't it so that people who don't like him don't like him because of race?"

Another question for Mikal: If I insert Clarence Thomas' name in the above question, what would your answer be?

And isn't it so that people who don't like Clarence Thomas don't like him becuase of his race?

"He loves music. He's personable. He dresses good. What the fuck do you want me to say?"He's catering to the pop-cult. The surface.

How about:Obama gave all our money away to his cronies and donors. Obama promised to cut the debt in half and instead he added trillions. Obama promised Golden Gate Bridges and Hoover Dams, and we got nothing but the bill.

Dylan knows he cannot answer with honesty. He'll be black-listed by the not-so-tolerant and not-so- thoughtful leftwing pop-cultists.

What an awful interview. Reminds me of watching Henry Rollins on TV interviewing some actor and repeatedly trying to interject some pet political bugaboo into the conversation. The actor (whom I forget) insisted on talking about acting.

Things have changed. The con that O committed was just a ridiculous phrase: hope and change. But hope for what? And change to what? As he's admitted, he simply acted as a blank canvas on which people can project.

"I like how all the people demanding I say something nice about Romney can see the error of this journalist's ways but not their own.

Man, you guys are brain-dead and tunnel-visioned, to the extreme.

Fucking incredible,."

Interesting. I like the way you pretend people want you to say something nice about Romney rather than them pointing out to you that someone is going to be elected president in November and if it isnt Romney its going to be Obama. And for someone unable to get off the anti Mormon rant, "brain-dead and tunnel-visioned, to the extreme." seems to about right.

I don't know what bug crawled into your brain, Crack, but you certainly have grown exceedingly tiresome of late. You're reaching Mick level very quickly. Perhaps you're already there. Do you want to talk, or do you just want to rant?

I wish Rolling Stone had been more balanced when I was young too. I might not have wasted so much time in the realm of cluelessness myself. They aren't helping the new generation much either.

Libertarian/conservative ideology is so much cooler today than leftist statism and it's unyielding conformity. I don't get why kids aren't attracted to it more. It's the environment of free thought, rebellion, and human rights today.

People confuse right wing with religious far too much, many of the strongest voices on the right are non-religious.

Because something is happening hereBut you don't know what it isDo you, Mister Jones?

So shiloh reminds us. Yes, the hipsters merrily assumed that Dylan was stroking their already glorified egos with another trite exercise of putting down the squares.

But Dylan was cleverer than that. A close reading of "Ballad of Thin Man" reveals a startling homosexual layer rife with phallic imagery in which the hipsters don't know what is happening and therefore become as dumb as the squares -- Dylan's joke that almost no one got.

You walk into the roomWith your pencil in your handYou see somebody nakedAnd you say, "Who is that man?"

You raise up your headAnd you ask, "Is this where it is?"And somebody points to you and says"It's his"And you say, "What's mine?"And somebody else says, "Where what is?"And you say, "Oh my GodAm I here all alone?"

You hand in your ticketAnd you go watch the geekWho immediately walks up to youWhen he hears you speakAnd says, "How does it feelTo be such a freak?"And you say, "Impossible"As he hands you a bone

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to youAnd then he kneelsHe crosses himselfAnd then he clicks his high heelsAnd without further noticeHe asks you how it feelsAnd he says, "Here is your throat backThanks for the loan"

Now you see this one-eyed midgetShouting the word "NOW"And you say, "For what reason?"And he says, "How?"And you say, "What does this mean?"And he screams back, "You're a cowGive me some milkOr else go home"

I am as flummoxed as you, Kids have always loved to be labeled conservative because fear of change and love of stasis is so cool and hip.

There is no confusion about the republican-god industrial complex. The republican convention speeches are all peppered with reference to god and the like. Coupled with the foreign war starting, gay-hate and drug-war addiction, the republicans are as libertarian as the demoncraps.

...and one more thing. A tip of the cap for flying up on a kite. I might not agree with you, but you will always have my respect for channeling crazy into fun. Personally, I prefer aluminum skin and four cylinders. But then again, I'm a wimp!

I don't know what bug crawled into your brain, Crack, but you certainly have grown exceedingly tiresome of late. You're reaching Mick level very quickly. Perhaps you're already there. Do you want to talk, or do you just want to rant?

Which will convince absolutely no one. That's why I said it's tiresome. Do you really want to be the new Mick? Or do you want to contribute? And if you don't want to contribute, surely you have better uses for your time.

Oh, by the way, where on the ballot do I select the Mormon Church to "lead my country"? Is it right next to the box I would check for Trinity United Church?

" Kids have always loved to be labeled conservative because fear of change and love of stasis is so cool and hip. "

There is nothing on the right like the controlling compliance of the left. The boomers are old, in control, and they have made their ideas into law in a way the right never did, or even tried to.

You can be a lefty and be loved by conservatives if your not an ass about it, but the left will attack, you, your kids, your livelihood, and your reputation just for expressing yourself. They want you gone and destroyed. That is not something I would ever have hooked up with when I was young.

To be a toady of the government, to blindly follow the ideas of your teachers and your parents is just not what youth is about. We used to demonstrate against the teachers for enforcing rules. Now they all join together to support the teachers and their union's robbing of their parents and themselves. It's supremely uncool, and not free-thinking.

And Howard, you're right about hang gliding. It is freedom. Attached to nothing, floating on air, no fuel, no power but the wind. Although we voluntarily self-regulate, there is no government requirement for a license, registration or anything else. Just don't violate any federal airspace, and you are free like a bird, until you have to land somewhere, and then property rights take over. Usually, common decency and respect takes care of that issue.

Creely has an interesting take on The Ballad of the Thin Man. I always thought that Mister Jones was the cuckolded husband of "Me and Mrs Jones"......Those people whose opinions about politics are shaped by musicians and actors are not likely voters. That's what I keep telling myself.

You're funny - acting as though reasonable discussion has any place (or effect) on cultish thinking. If it did, I wouldn't be ranting. Listen, I think I know *a little bit more* about this subject than you do - and never expect immediate results - but, just as I was seen as a loony when I first got here, only to be revealed as viewing something the rest of you ignore, I have no doubt this election will end just like the last one:

When you discover it's YOU who have changed by selling out your values, and gotten duped again, and not me.

Do you really want to be the new Mick? Or do you want to contribute? And if you don't want to contribute, surely you have better uses for your time.

"Contribute" to what, exactly? Yours seems to be the new cultish theme around here - go away and leave us to our delusion. Don't make us hear we're wrong. It's pointless, because - if we didn't come to common sense on our own (and I most assuredly don't see anyone ELSE arguing for it) - then we're surely not going to get there while smearing you.

Which is all you're attempting to do under the guise of appearing "reasonable" - smearing Mick (which doesn't trouble you one bit, kind soul that you are) and, by extension, me. Is that different than ranting? Let me tell you about Mick:

If nothing else, he's consistent, which deserves more credit than you We Hate Romney/He's Our Candidate/Don't You Dare Recognize Our Hypocrisy suckers any day.

Oh, by the way, where on the ballot do I select the Mormon Church to "lead my country"? Is it right next to the box I would check for Trinity United Church?

Obama broke with Trinity (you guys like dog whistles more than facts) while Mitt's still a devoted member of his cult - anyway, after next week, it'll already be too late:

They'll already begin to have the upper hand on everything because Mitt doesn't do a damned thing without informing the leadership of the "prophets."

Good job, guys - you've sold us out, Big Time - two elections in a row,...

I posted it because I think many people, like shiloh and Mikal Gilmore, wish to appropriate Dylan for their own shallow purposes, but there is more to Dylan. Much of his journey, as I understand it, has been to avoid such appropriation.

Dylan has been overestimated and underestimated. He is not America's conscience nor our messiah. (I had a cousin once so enthused with Dylan he wanted to gather a bunch of people together to ask D. if he was the messiah.) But Dylan is one hell of an artist and songwriter, better than most people realize. No one can take that away from him.

PS I believe many of those dense crazy songs he wrote, like "Thin Man," came out of his druggy New York period around the Chelsea Hotel and the Andy Warhol entourage.

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"God say, "No." Abe say, "What ?"God say, "You can do what you want Abe, butThe next time you see me comin' you better run"Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done ?"God says. "Out on Highway 61".

I think his irritation is that of an artist who knows that if he says he's unhappy with Obama, it'll be news. And people will attack him and his career might be hurt some. Liberals can be very intolerant in that way. They are all too prone to boycott anybody who doesn't toe the line.

So he doesn't want to attack Obama but he doesn't want to praise him, either. I totally get that. Republicans are in the closet in Hollywood and I imagine the music industry is similar.

Other cool thing about Dylan is how pro-Israel he is. Neighborhood Bully is a terrific song about Israel and the Jewish people.

Neil Young is another guy who is considered to be really political. He shocked a lot of people with his willingness to say nice things about Reagan. Nice interview with him in the Wall Street Journal.

Funny how Rolling Stone just wants Dylan to talk about Obama, while the WSJ wants to hear the artist talk about music.

He's done some things, especially in his early days, that - in hindsight - I thought were mean. But it was a different world and he had to live in it, which I can understand when I consider how I'm received, not finding many safe harbors amongst the sea of believers, hypocrites, liars, and cowards that make up what others consider "civilized society." (Not rational or truly good, mind you, but one THEY feel comfortable thriving in.)

But Bob has fought the good fight, throwing out the proper questions, and never fading on the answer of the black issue in this country. And one of his best songs (a cover actually) saved my mind, if not my life, after my divorce -and set the tone of my relations with most women since. I'll always be grateful for that.

No, I like Bob, but as a man - which how I think he'd like to be admired. Anything more is bullshit. Anything less is a lie.

Dylan is a survivor of all the iconic nonsense introduced in his lifetime, and - as it's elected standard bearer - I think his rejection of it is an example to us all,...

Anyone who thinks they understand Dylan doesn't. He is sui generis. Might as well try to understand Ezra Pound or T.S. Eliot. Light a joint, drink some wine and listen. That's what I did the day I cast a vote for Barry Goldwater.

Oh, come on. Dylan has a very broad range from easy ("Lay Lady Lay") to straightforward ("The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll") to fun ("Jack of Hearts") to mildly challenging ("Blowin' In the Wind") to somewhat challenging ("Like A Rolling Stone") to difficult ("Ballad of a Thin Man") to obscure ("Visions of Johanna") with lots more territory besides.

Telling people they can't understand Dylan (or Eliot or Pound for that matter) is just mean and wrong. True, some it is difficult to impossible (I'm thinking more Eliot and Pound than Dylan), but like Steve Jobs once said, "The journey is the reward."

I bet all this shit, and I mean all of it just cracks Dylan up. That's alright. It makes people happy, and engaged, so it's cool, but I just get reminded of people seeing Jesus in a piece of toast. As many song writers have confessed, including Dylan, sometimes the words just sound good together, which is just fine, especially when it sounds like Jesus.

I'm a writer. People who care about writing, and Dylan does, aren't just throwing words at paper and hoping something sticks. Usually they are after something, even if the result appears opaque to others. Besides, it is hard to make something completely out of nothing, so one works with the materials at hand, i.e. one's experiences. Dylan has admitted that too.

I got to Warhol because I was checking Nico as a possible inspiration for "Visions of Johanna." After all, Nico was Leonard Cohen's "Joan of Arc" and they were all in that Chelsea Hotel/Warhol Factory/NYC nexus, so it seemed possible that Nico was Johanna. So I started thinking about the Warhol circle in general as a fertile field for Dylan to exploit in his songs.

Dylan did visit Warhol at the Factory. There are all sorts of tells in "Queen Jane Approximately" that subject is Warhol -- creations, repetition, plastic (Exploding Plastic Inevitable), flower ladies (transvestites), bandits (hustlers) and the mood of sophisticated boredom which permeates the song. So I felt I was on solid ground with my hunch. Then I checked wiki:

However, in 1965 Dylan himself told journalist Nora Ephron that "Queen Jane is a man".

I bet all this shit, and I mean all of it just cracks Dylan up. That's alright. It makes people happy, and engaged, so it's cool, but I just get reminded of people seeing Jesus in a piece of toast. As many song writers have confessed, including Dylan, sometimes the words just sound good together, which is just fine, especially when it sounds like Jesus.

That's a fine observation, now look at how fast cruelly tries to flip it into a belief system:

And sometimes, more often, the words mean something.

I swear, you can't win with these people. They want it SO BAD! There's GOT to be something more than mere songwriting here, you understand, because "I'm a writer" - but not a very good one because, otherwise, people would constantly be tripping on my imaginative turns of phrase, which doesn't happen - but still, I know.

Give me a break.

The man is a man.

And you, bagoh, know more about his craft than all the wannabe worshipers in the world, combined,....

Oh please (rolling eyes), WTF, there's nothing in what creeley said (interpreting what a songwriter-- nothing more than a songwriter, as creeley himself points out-- might have meant or suggested by his lyrics) that flips it into a "belief system."

But someone here always has to project and insult others (like creeley here, who's doing nothing more than enjoying and taking pleasure from speculatively interpreting Dylan's lyrics, which is part of the very point of lyrics) as some kind of cultist thing. When creeley was the first to insist Dylan is no messiah.

There are all sorts of tells in "Queen Jane Approximately" that subject is Warhol -- creations, repetition, plastic (Exploding Plastic Inevitable), flower ladies (transvestites), bandits (hustlers) and the mood of sophisticated boredom which permeates the song.

And much of it is stuff that goes to the heart of what we know of Warhol's personality and life. Warhol's relationship to "your children [who] start to resent you" (e.g. starting with the obvious, Evie). And "all the clowns that you have commissioned [who] have died in battle or in vain" (from drugs.) And starting with a reference to his "mother" (whom Warhol adored). And "that you’re tired of yourself and all of your creations" and "you're sick of all this repetition" and "you want somebody you don’t have to speak to"…

yashu: Bang! You get it. Warhol is a fascinating character and Queen Jane fits him like a glove.

It's a shame that so many people write off Dylan's deeper songs as inspired, impenetrable nonsense that no one can understand and Dylan didn't mean them to.

Sometimes Dylan is just playing. Many of the Basement Tapes songs come across that way, but note how few of them have survived as songs of import.

Dylan is a flat genius. He can write silly love songs, surreal doggerel, straight-up protest songs, visionary mysticism, social commentary, wonderful story songs, intricately coded songs, great relationship songs, and every now and then a song that changes history.

It doesn't make Dylan a messiah nor anyone who appreciates his range and depth a cult follower.

People can read too much into words. I've run into insane James Joyce scholarship, as well as a professor who was certain that "Sail on, silver girl" in Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" meant that the song's narrator was a junkie shooting up.

Dylan is such a writer. Consider Tweeter & the Monkey Man which he knocked out for The Travelling Wilburys. "Tweeter" was a killer parody of Bruce Springsteen. Dylan composed it, one senses, with his left hand.

If Dylan can do that, why not a send-up of Andy Warhol as Queen Jane so subtle that almost no one noticed?

Dylan is a master. Those who believe his words are "Jesus in a piece of toast" are either lazy or fools.

Heh, tell me about it. I studied literature sometime during deconstruction's hangover. Which involved a very hostile form of "reading into"-- or more accurately, "reading asunder."

But what you're talking about is more characteristic of a different kind of reading, which approaches the text as if it were a sacred dense cryptic symbology to be deciphered, as if the words were hieroglyphics rather than human speech.

But it's also true that writers intentionally create subtle effects that are amazing.

Agreed. One of the best practitioners of very close reading of poetry-- who prefers to let the poem show her how to read it, without a theoretical agenda/ axe to grind-- is Helen Vendler. I find many literary critics' close readings arbitrary and tendentious, but Vendler's are consistently illuminating. I've learned much from her about how to read poetry.

Dylan is a master. Those who believe his words are "Jesus in a piece of toast" are either lazy or fools.

Agreed. Sure, it's possible for someone to dislike or dismiss or criticize his lyrics. But it's indisputable (not just from his work, but from countless remarks Dylan has made in interviews etc. about his craft) that he puts a great deal of thought and care into their construction.

Here's a fun collection of interviews. Just to quote two remarks (picked randomly, because they're the first ones I found in the first interview at hand):

"A lot of myself crosses over into my songs. I'll write something and say to myself, I can change this, I can make this not so personal, and at other times I'll say, I think I'll leave this on a personal level, and if somebody wants to peek at it and make up their own minds about what kind of character I am, that's up to them. Other times I might say, well, it's too personal, I think I'll turn the corner on it, because why do I want somebody thinking about what I'm thinking about, especially if it's not to their benefit."

"Sometimes the 'you' in my songs is me talking to me. Other times I can be talking to somebody else. If I'm talking to me in a song, I'm not going to drop everything and say, alright, now I'm talking to you. It's up to you to figure out who's who. A lot of times it's 'you' talking to 'you.' The 'I,' like in 'I and I,' also changes. It could be I, or it could be the 'I' who created me. And also, it could be another person who's saying 'I.' When I say 'I' right now, I don’t know who I'm talking about."

I was struck by the second Dylan quote, in which he explains how fluid the "I" and the "you" are in his songs. While composing the "Thin Man" comment, I noticed that at the beginining of the sword swallower verse, Mr. Jones is receiving fellatio but at the end of the verse he has given fellatio.

Crack insulted me for mentioning that I was a writer (Crack insults just about everyone for just about everything), but it's one of the ways I know -- in addition to what writers tell us -- how deeply writers think about what they write.